


Me and the Prophet are Both in the Business of Souls

by multifascinate (talkativelock)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Attempted Murder, Everyone is at least one flavor of bamf, Heist, Interfering With a Government Agency, M/M, No One Gets Along and Yamaguchi is Very Tired, Other, Plot Twists upon Plot Twists, References to Events that Happen Before the Plot, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, Unsafe Shenanigans that You Should Not Try At Home, backstabbing, shifting pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkativelock/pseuds/multifascinate
Summary: The five of them gather on the couch, the screen in front of them so large it fills the entire wall. Tsukishima is at one end, his fingers clicking on his keyboard as he pulls up file after file on the screen and organizes them into groups. Next to him, Yamaguchi squints at the files and makes thoughtful humming noises in the back of his throat occasionally. At the other end of the couch Kageyama and Shouyou fight over popcorn. As in literally fight. Tsukishima is going to kill them when he realizes that they’ve spilled some of it on the carpet and into the cracks between the cushions in their tussling.In the middle Hitoka can’t help but feel content. They’re about to plan a crime, one that will set them on a path of danger, but somehow she wouldn’t be anywhere else.





	Me and the Prophet are Both in the Business of Souls

**Author's Note:**

> *stumbles in the door two weeks late with starbucks* MARRY CHRISTMAS
> 
> Thank you to everyone for all your patience with this fic. I am pleased to announce that it's finally moving forward! Special thanks to my beta and fiance, Dorylin, and to Esselley whose excitement kept me going. This is your gift. It's late, but it's here.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all like Leverage and if you haven't seen it I hope that this convinces you to. You don't need to watch Leverage to read this fic and if you have seen Leverage then you might be bored a couple of times, sorry sorry. Without further ado, let's go steal a fanfiction.

For Yamaguchi Tadashi life has really gone downhill recently.

He was a rising star in insurance investigation. For the last three years he’s been chasing white collar criminals and proving insurance frauds. He saved his company, Hoken Insurance Company, trillions of yen in insurance payouts and, for some reason, he expected to be treated well because of it. He wasn’t.

HIC came under media fire about a month ago for some not technically illegal but still very shady investment practices. Tadashi, apparently expendable, was retroactively promoted and then blamed and fired. They claimed that without him they could return to ethical investment practices, saving face and ruining any chance of Tadashi working in the industry again. Or any industry really. At best the world thinks he's an incompetent idiot, at worst he’s an evil one.

So here Tadashi is, unemployable and eating through his savings quicker than he’d like. Coffee is probably not a wise way to spend his remaining money but at this point Tadashi is fairly certain that he’s going to die penniless anyway. What’s one cup of cheap diner coffee against the end of Tadashi’s life?

“Um, hello?”

Tadashi blinks and then turns in his chair. A man hovers not too far away. He’s tall and broad shouldered, wearing a tee shirt under an obviously fake leather jacket. He’s got brown eyes behind huge glasses and a nervous, wobbly smile.

For a long moment Tadashi just stares at him. When the guy doesn’t say anything Tadashi shrugs and turns back to his drink.

“Um,” the guy says again and Tadashi sighs, turning back to him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He jumps, skittish. “Yes, actually. Well, I hope so anyway.” Tadashi frowns but doesn’t comment. The guy scrambles to sit at Tadashi’s table. “Are you Yamaguchi Tadashi, genius insurance investigator?”

Tadashi sighs. “I used to be.”

The guy tilts his head. “Are you talking about what your company did to you? I read up on that. It was pretty terrible of them.”

“Talking about it won’t change anything,” Tadashi says glumly to his coffee. “Dwelling doesn’t stop me from being poor.”

The guy shifts anxiously in his seat. “What if I offer you a job?”

Tadashi lifts his head and eyes the stranger suspiciously. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Right,” the guy is flustered, embarrassed. “I’m Takeda Ittetsu. I run the drone program at Karasuno Aerospace Innovations.”

“I don’t know anything about making drones,” Tadashi says.

Takeda’s hands splay out in the air in front of him and wave around. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. I’m having a problem that only you and your specific skill set can fix. I was hoping that I could pay you to help me.” Tadashi frowns and Takeda rushes ahead. 

“We’re due to announce a new tactical drone at the end of the week. We’ve been working on it for years, I’m actually extremely proud of it, but right as we were doing the final tweaks on the prototype, it and the designs up and vanished. Yesterday, Ukai Technologies announced an identical project.” Takeda’s face falls. “They stole all my work.”

“Sounds like a job for the police,” Tadashi says.

“Yamaguchi-san, please. There’s no time. An investigation would be a media circus and if I attend a product announcement without a product our entire company could go under from the stock market hit.”

Tadashi sighs and wishes that he could get away with laying his head on the table. This entire conversation is a headache. “I don’t understand what you want me to do.”

“You could get them back,” Takeda says earnestly. “You did it all the time when you worked for HIC.”

“Proving insurance fraud is different from stealing,” Tadashi replies. “I’m not a thief.”

“I already hired thieves,” Takeda says and then fidgets under Tadashi’s incredulous stare. “I just need someone with good morals to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Tadashi lets his coffee rest on the table so he can scrub his hands down his face. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. Please, Yamaguchi-san.” Tadashi looks through his fingers to see Takeda pulling a file folder out of his bag. “I’ve only hired the best.”

He lays the folder down on the table and opens it, pushing it towards Tadashi. Tadashi can’t stop himself from sweeping the first page.

It’s a dossier. Hinata Shouyou, retrieval specialist. Tadashi chased him twice last year. He’s fairly new to the criminal scene but his skills are undeniably top tier. He’s not a big name player in the criminal underground, not yet anyway, but he has the talent and the fortitude and it’s only a matter of time before he has the fame too.

Morbidly curious, Tadashi flips to the next dossier and he can only stare. “Wait, you’ve hired Kageyama?”

Takeda blinks. “Is there anyone better?”

“No,” Tadashi admits, because Kageyama Tobio is a scarily good burglar. “But Kageyama’s not a team player. Kageyama won’t do it and Hinata doesn’t have any experience in groups. You’ll never get them to work together.”

“They will for 5,000,000 yen each. And I’ll give you double.” Takeda fidgets again. “Please, I’m desperate, Yamaguchi-san.”

Tadashi looks back at the dossier. He flips to the next one and then closes the folder at the sight of the name. Tsukishima Kei.

“Takeda-san,” Tadashi sighs. “You’re going to have to find someone else.”

“There is no one else,” Takeda says. “And this isn’t even everything. It also comes with revenge.” At Tadashi’s questioning look Takeda continues on. “Ukai Tech has an intellectual property rights policy with HIC. 8,000,000,000 yen. If you pull this off your old bosses will be forced to pay out.”

Tadashi stares at him. Hoken Insurance Company, constantly investing unwisely and reallocating funds in ways they shouldn’t, may not be able to afford to cut a check like that right now, not after the blow they just took dealing with the PR fiasco that caused Tadashi’s firing. It could be the end of them. Like poetic justice or karma. Was it wrong of Tadashi to want a company like that, a company that is practically immoral, to go under? Was it wrong to want to help karma along?

“Fine,” Tadashi says at last. Takeda smiles.

…

Kei gets to the checkpoint first. He makes a point of it, in fact. He has no idea who the other members of this so called team are and he’d like to be prepared. He brings with him a case with his laptop that he built himself, his customized phone, and a set of personally designed gadgets that he can guarantee are better than anything their hypothetical leader will give them.

After sweeping the area for bugs and other unsavory things Kei settles down on the park bench to wait. He flicks through his phone, the entire internet at the tips of his fingers, and pretends that he’s not keeping an eye out for approaching criminals. He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Hey, there,” a short guy with terrible hair says. “Is this the meeting place?” He wiggles his eyebrows at Kei.

“No,” Kei says. “Buzz off.”

“Aw, come on,” Shrimpy complains. “You could at least try to be cool.”

“Whoever you’re looking for I’m not it, Shrimp,” Kei says.

The guy twitches. “Hey-”

“Shut up, you’re too loud,” a third voice says and Kei turns because he knows that voice.

Kageyama Tobio, king of thieves, melts out of the shadows like he was born there. Shrimpy gapes, Kei smirks.

“I was wondering if it would be you, king.”

Kageyama twitches and glares. “I said shut up.”

“King?” Shrimpy wonders aloud. “As in king of thieves?”

Kei can practically hear Kageyama’s teeth grinding from here. “Watch it.”

“Are you going to lose it? Are you going to shoot us?” Kei taunts.

Shrimpy’s eyes seem to sharpen, focusing on Kageyama with a frightening intensity. “Shoot us? Do you make a habit of shooting people?”

Kageyama seems to puff up, hackles raised for a fight. “None of your business, shorty.”

“Hey,” Shrimpy snaps.

“Now, now, king,” Kei says, trying not to laugh, “it’s in poor taste to make fun of children.”

“I’m not a kid,” Shrimpy spits. “I’m a professional, just like you two.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kageyama growls. “What do you even do?”

Shrimpy opens his mouth to reply but a fourth voice cuts him off. “Enough.” 

The three of them turn and Yamaguchi Tadashi walks up to them, bundled into his coat and giving them an unimpressed look over his scarf.

“We haven’t stolen anything,” Shrimpy says, immediately.

“Hey, dumbass, he wouldn’t be here for that,” Kageyama snaps. “He’s out of the game.”

“What, really?” Shrimpy asks, face going slack with surprise.

“Obviously. Where the fuck have you been?”

Kei takes advantage of their distracting squabble to look Tadashi over. He doesn’t look very good. There are dark circles under his eyes, thrown into sharp relief by the nearby lamp post, and if Kei had to guess he’d say that Tadashi looks thinner. It’s been over a year since he’s seen Tadashi in person. He never guessed that Tadashi would look like this, like a shadow of his former self.

“I said that’s enough,” Tadashi says. “If you can’t work together then I’ll send you all home and none of us will get paid.”

The park falls silent.

“So I take it you’re our leader, then?” Kei asks.

Tadashi’s eyes flick to his but they don’t stay there. Just as fast as they look to him they look away. “Yeah, I’m running this job.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Kageyama says.

“That’s so cool,” Shrimpy says, bouncing his way over to Tadashi. “I didn’t think you’d ever end up on our side, Yamaguchi.”

Yamaguchi shuffles his feet. “Yeah, well, things change.” His eyes flick up to Kei’s again before sweeping the entire crew. “Let’s go. We have a lot of work to do.”

…

Tobio is starting to regret taking this job.

Firstly, he didn’t realize that Tsukishima fucking Kei would be the hacker. Playing nice with Tsukishima is like paying money for stuff; it’s awful and it makes Tobio’s skin crawl.

Secondly, the tiny orange guy named Hinata is very annoying. He’s loud, picked up Tsukishima’s habit of using that terrible nickname, and tripped twice on the stairs. Tobio isn’t entirely sure what role Hinata is supposed to be filling here. He’s not smart enough to be a hacker, not physically deft enough to be a hitter or a backup thief. Maybe he’s a grifter? That would make sense. He certainly seems to be a cheery people person, which is probably why Tobio and Tsukishima both find him so annoying. Tobio’s going to forget he ever agreed with Tsukishima on anything.

Getting to the roof of Ukai Technologies is easy. Their neighbor, some rentable office space, has terrible security. Picking the lock is easy, Tsukishima does something complicated with his phone to stop the alarm from going off, and then they haul their gear up the stairs to roof access. Tobio loves the city; the blocks are large glass buildings that contain multiple business and that makes it easy to get into high security places. They don’t even need to jump to get to Ukai Tech’s roof, they just walk the length of the building and drop their bags between ventilation pipes and the elevator shaft’s maintenance hatch.

“This is cheap trash, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima chides when they start getting ready. They’re putting in their coms, which Tsukishima is apparently personally offended by. He listens to something that Yamaguchi says and then replies. “Who do you think I am? Of course I have something better.”

“Stop being high and mighty and do something,” Tobio grumbles, making sure his rig isn’t going to fall off the roof when he puts weight on it. Tsukishima shoots him a poisonous look but responds to Yamaguchi.

“Scouts honor,” he says, sounding a little sarcastic.

Tsukishima digs around in his bag and comes up with a case. “Bone conduction earpiece. We’ll barely need to mutter to be heard and they’re practically invisible.”

Hinata peers at them curiously. “Are they safe?”

“Sure,” Tsukishima agrees in a tone that implies otherwise.

Hinata pulls a face. “I don’t know if I want to use one.”

“Dumbass.” Tobio rolls his eyes. Where did they even find this guy? “He wouldn’t use it himself if he thought it was dangerous.”

“You never know, I could be self-destructive like our good king,” Tsukishima says.

Tobio grits his teeth at the reminder of the job gone wrong, the reason why he doesn’t work in groups anymore, the reason why assholes like Tsukishima call him the king of thieves. It's the only blemish on his otherwise perfect record. He maintains that what happened wasn’t his fault. If Tobio had it his way they would have succeeded and Tobio would still have successfully stolen everything he’s ever tried to steal, even if he didn’t always get to keep it afterwards thanks to people like Yamaguchi, but no one wanted to listen to him.

It wasn’t Tobio’s fault.

“Give me one, you piece of shit,” Tobio snaps.

Tsukishima laughs and Tobio tucks the earbud into his ear. He can immediately hear Yamaguchi’s voice.

“Knock it off, Tsukishima, we have a job to do.”

“But he just makes it so easy,” Tsukishima replies.

“Bastard,” Tobio grumbles.

“I don’t wanna be left out,” Hinata complains. “Give me one too.”

Tobio turns away and busies himself with triple checking his rig. It’s weighed down and attached to multiple permanent structures on the roof. With this thing Tobio can defy gravity.

“Whoa, I can hear Yamaguchi really well. So cool.”

“They’re just earbuds.”

“How do they work?”

“An idiot like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Hey!”

“If you guys are wasting time arguing you better all be completely ready,” Yamaguchi says, sounding tired. Tobio steps up to the building’s edge.

“The king has a USB with my remote access decryption software on it in his gear already,” Tsukishima replies, bored, “and I saw at least four different types of glass cutters.”

“That’s a lot,” Hinata says.

“It never hurts to be prepared,” Tobio insists.

“That’s a good idea,” Yamaguchi agrees. Tobio glances over his shoulder and catches Tsukishima’s poisonous glance. “Kageyama, are you ready?”

Instead of replying Tobio jumps off the building.

Tobio will never get over that feeling of free falling. Gymnastics, getting around security systems through the air ducts, picking locks, and cracking safes, all these things pale to the feeling of diving off a skyscraper and feeling the air rush by you. The only thing better is the feeling of money or jewels in your hand.

Too soon the auto brake kicks in. Tobio slows to a stop just shy of the window he was aiming for. He’ll have to tweak the air compressors.

“Are you crazy?” Hinata complains in his ear. 

“Shut up,” Tobio says at the same time that Tsukishima says, “Yes.” 

Yamaguchi sighs.

Tobio pumps the trigger a few times to drop himself another meter. In front of him is a nondescript office on the same floor as prototype storage. He sees a light inside showing an active alarm. He squints at it. Glass vibration detector. Stupid.

With an eye roll he pulls a tube of binary acidic gel he keeps just for cases like this out of one of the compartments on his harness. With the other hand he sticks a pressurized cup to the glass.

“Careful,” Yamaguchi says in his ear.

“I know what I’m doing,” he replies as he starts to trace a large circle, watching carefully as the acid eats through the glass. In a few minutes he has a window with a hole in it, a large pane of glass with melted edges, and a lot of boredom.

Careful not to let the glass touch the rest of the window, Tobio pushes the circle through. It lands flat on the carpet inside with a thunk.

“Can you hurry up, Kageyama,” Hinata complains in his ear. “Standing around with Tsukishima sucks.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Tsukishima replies.

“Get over it.”

“Stop being so loud,” Tobio complains as he unhooks himself from half of his harness and starts sliding his way through the hole he’s made to put his hands on the desk. Once he’s most of the way there it’s just a matter of triggering the spring release and flawlessly turning his momentum into a front walkover.

He lands on his feet in the office and heads into the hall, taking a few turns that he memorized when Yamaguchi showed him the building’s blueprints earlier. He picks a lock and enters this floors security office, which is just a small closet with a computer, desk, and chair, and a large window looking out over the majority of the main floor.

“Are you going to take all night?” Tsukishima wonders. 

“I’m working on it.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

“Please try to focus, Tsukishima,” Yamaguchi says.

Tobio hits the power button and then fishes out Tsukishima’s USB stick and plugs it into the computer. “There, your stupid computer shit is set up. I’m heading for the prototype.”

…

Kei does good work. It barely takes a minute for his decryptor to get him into the security system. Sure, he’s going to have to hack most of this place as he goes but it shouldn’t be too hard. He’s spoofed the security cameras before the elevator, also something he hacked, arrives on the server room’s floor. Hinata is antsy beside him. 

“Whatcha doing?”

“Multitasking,” Kei says.

“Multitasking?”

“Yes,” Kei can’t stop himself from smirking. “I’m both hacking my way into spying on the main floor security room and being annoyed by you.”

“Asshole,” Hinata complains. “I can’t believe I have to work with you.”

“Work with me?” Tsukishima wonders. “You haven’t done anything yet.”

“Jerk,” Hinata complains.

“Tsukishima,” Tadashi says.

“I know, I know,” Kei sighs.

“No, I’m talking about the missing guards.”

Kei blinks at his phone where a really badly angled security camera feed shows him absolutely nothing. “How do you figure?”

“Count the haircuts,” Tadashi sounds tense. “There should be eight but there are only six.”

“Shit,” Kei says as the elevator dings their arrival.

“Problem?” Kageyama asks.

“No, no, it’ll be fine,” Tadashi says. He sounds nervous.

“Don’t lie, Tadashi,” Kei reprimands.

“You do your job, I’ll do mine,” Tadashi responds.

“Yamaguchi-” Kei starts but Hinata cuts him off.

“Come on, we’re wasting time.”

With a curse, Kei follows after Hinata. They make it through two doors before they reach the server room, which requires a keycard. It’s on a closed system so Kei is forced to improvise. Luckily, he brought toys.

“They’re doing their patrol early because of the playoffs tonight,” Tadashi says suddenly as Kei fits his fake card into the reader. It starts to decode but it’s going to take time.

“How long do we have?” Kei asks.

“Maybe a minute,” Tadashi says.

“Are we fucking blown already?” Kageyama snaps.

“Calm down,” Tadashi sighs. “Stay on task, Kageyama. Hinata, clear the zone. Don’t kill anyone.”

Hinata smiles at that. It’s not a nice smile. If it was on someone actually intimidating Kei might be scared. With a little skip Hinata turns and walks down the hall and around the corner, out of sight.

Kei grits his teeth. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on.”

“Your gadget can run on its own, right?”

Kei scoffs. “Obviously.”

“I need you to squelch them. We can’t have them calling for backup so flood their radios with static or feedback, whichever is easier.”

Kei pulls his phone back out and scowls at it, flicking his thumbs through the keyboard in practiced movements. “What’s Hinata going to do?”

“The only thing Hinata’s good at,” is Tadashi’s completely unhelpful response.

Before Kei can demand a clearer explanation the guards round the corner, tasers out. Kei curses, backing up a step, because he did not sign up to be tasered.

“Hands up,” one of them shouts. “Hands up or we’ll shoot.”

Kei doesn’t exactly put his hands up but he does lift them, phone still in hand. “What seems to be the problem?” he asks, trying to sound calm and in control.

Hinata strolls right back around the corner. Kei blinks. He thought that Hinata had abandoned him.

“Drop the phone,” a guard demands.

“I’d rather not,” Kei says. “It was very expensive to make.”

“Drop. The. Phone,” the guard repeats.

“Hi guys,” Hinata says.

The guards jump and turn but they never make it.

Hinata moves like water. Pressure points, Kei thinks, or maybe he just really hits that hard. In a few sharp movements he’s taken down both guards. He pulls their tasers from their hands and plants a jab into one's throat, kicks the other’s knee out. There’s a twisted wrist, a kidney shot, a blow to the back of a head. One of them ends up colliding face first with a wall. In a matter of seconds it’s over and Hinata stands in front of him smiling that smile from before, the one that isn’t very nice.

“Told you I’d do something,” Hinata says.

“I doubt you did anything useful,” Kageyama says over the coms.

Hinata’s creepy expression falls off his face in favor of a pout. “Kageyama, you’re so rude. Tell him what I did, Tsukishima.”

“I’d really rather not,” Kei says.

Hinata opens his mouth to complain but before he can the door behind Kei opens as the lock disengages, his gadget having done its job.

…

Shouyou’s done his fair share of escort missions but most of them don’t suck quite as badly as shadowing Tsukishima Kei. First off, Tsukishima is ungrateful. The only person Shouyou has run security for that was this ungrateful was a spoiled six year old whose parents were richer than a god. Second thing, Tsukishima is boring. Like now for example, in which Shouyou is forced to stand around in a room full of humming computers covered in blinking lights while Tsukishima does something fancy on a computer monitor he hooked up to them.

“This is lame,” Shouyou says.

“No, you’re just an idiot,” Tsukishima says without looking up.

“Can’t you do that any faster?”

“No,” Tsukishima says without missing a beat.

“Lame,” Shouyou repeats.

“Hinata,” Yamaguchi chastises.

That’s another thing about this whole situation that’s kinda weird. Being on the same side as Yamaguchi is bizarre. Four months ago Shouyou had to fight his way through over thirty trained professionals, no one scary but no one stupid either, to get out of a building because Yamaguchi predicted all his moves. Now, somehow, he’s left the game and joined their side? It just doesn’t add up. Yamaguchi had been excelling and then suddenly, apparently, he wasn’t.

The weirdest part about all this, though, is Kageyama Tobio. King of cat burglars, known for being impossible to work with and able to steal practically anything not nailed down and some things that are. His awe filled first impression of Kageyama was shattered after saying two words to the man. He wasn’t aware that someone could be that grumpy all the time. Sure, Tsukishima is an asshole but at least he seems like he likes being an asshole. Kageyama seems like he likes nothing.

“Done,” Tsukishima says, breaking Shouyou out of his thoughts.

“Finally,” Shouyou says.

“We have a problem,” comes Kageyama’s voice over the coms. “Those guards locked up all the floors above you. I’m stuck here and you guys can’t go up.”

“How many guards did you say are left?” Shouyou asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Six? I could probably take them.”

Kageyama gives a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“You don’t have to believe me, we can just leave you there,” Shouyou says, sticking his tongue out at nothing.

“Oi, dumbass, I still have the prototype. Without it you’re fucked.”

“And I have the blueprints,” Tsukishima says. “So I guess we’re sticking together for now.”

Shouyou whines. “But breaking Kageyama out sounds hard.”

“Are you twelve or a professional?” Tsukishima demands.

“I don’t get you defending Kageyama all of a sudden,” Shouyou says suspiciously. “You hate him.”

“The king has the prototype,” Tsukishima says haughtily. “I want to be paid for my services, then I’ll never have to see you people again.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Yamaguchi sighs. “Everyone is getting out, everyone is getting paid, everyone is shutting up. Kageyama, go back to the office you came in through. Hinata, Tsukishima, head to the elevator and go down. You’re going to do a burn scam. Once you’re outside we’ll extract Kageyama.”

“But we don’t have the supplies to do a burn scam,” Shouyou says.

“Not an exact burn scam,” Yamaguchi says. “You carry bandages with you, right? I want you to wrap Tsukishima like a mummy.”

Shouyou can’t stop himself from grinning.

“Excuse me?” Tsukishima demands.

“We don’t have all night,” Yamaguchi says. Tsukishima scowls but starts moving towards the elevator. Shouyou trails behind.

“This is going to be great,” he says.

“Take pictures for me,” Kageyama says.

“Any pictures you take will be quickly deleted after this night is over,” Tsukishima says, voice cold.

“Aw, come on,” Shouyou says. “It’ll be like a memento.”

“Absolutely not.” They reach the elevator and step inside, waiting until the doors close to change.

Shouyou moves fast, shrugging off his loose clothes for the backup costume of a suit and tie that Yamaguchi had insisted they all pack. He doesn’t look at Tsukishima while he’s changing and he hopes that Tsukishima doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t want any awkward questions. 

While Tsukishima starts pulling on his clothes, a little slower than Shouyou had, Shouyou pulls out his bandages. “Lean over, Tsukishima.”

Tsukishima sighs. “This is the worst,” he says but then he does it. Shouyou plucks his glasses from his nose. “Hey!”

“You’ll get these back when we’re done,” Shouyou says. Curious, he pushes them to his face. “Whoa, you’re really blind.”

“Are we going to do this or not?” Tsukishima demands.

“Fine, fine. Touchy,” Shouyou says, folding the glasses and tucking them carefully in his pocket. 

It’s a little hard to wrap Tsukishima’s head with the elevator moving, stopping on every floor to give them more time, but Shouyou’s patched guys up in worse situations. He covers one of Tsukishima’s eyes, makes him look more dramatic, and then ties the bandage off. He also does one of Tsukishima’s arms, making a battlefield sling with the extra bandage. The collapsable splint he keeps in his bag goes on Tsukishima’s left knee, stopping it from bending.

“Where are you pulling all this shit from?” Tsukishima asks as they near the bottom.

“First aid kit,” Shouyou replies, buttoning Tsukishima’s shirt up the rest of the way.

“I hate you,” Tsukishima says.

“If you don’t take a picture I’ll never forgive you,” Kageyama says over the coms.

“You don’t even like me in the first place,” Shouyou responds.

“That’s true,” Kageyama says. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Takes one to know one,” Tsukishima jabs.

“You guys are giving me a migraine,” Yamaguchi says. He sounds like he’s at the end of his patience.

“Oops,” Shouyou says. “Gotta go, we’re at the lobby.”

The elevator dings and Shouyou scoops up both his bag and Tsukishima’s. With his free hand he catches Tsukishima when Tsukishima nearly falls because his leg won’t bend. “Sadist,” Tsukishima hisses but Shouyou keeps a hand out to steady him and falls into the role of assistant.

The front guard has a hand on his radio but he relaxes when he sees them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was anyone still in the building.” His eyes slide over to Tsukishima and his many bandages.

“Staring is rude, man,” Shouyou says and the guard immediately averts his eyes, which is good because Shouyou doesn’t really want him to notice that they’re field bandages and that Shouyou is currently carrying two duffles instead of two briefcases.

“It’s fine,” Tsukishima says, sullen.

“It’s really not,” Shouyou says, nudging Tsukishima. He must do it a bit too hard because Tsukishima nearly goes sprawling. Hinata rights him and Tsukishima curses.

Shouyou looks up at the guard. “Do you think you could help us out a bit?”

“What?” He says, still trying to look at them without looking at them. “Oh, right.” The guard heads for the door and holds it open for them. A car pulls up with Yamaguchi in the driver's seat. Tsukishima slides into the front and Shouyou shoves himself and both the bags into the back and then they’re home free.

“Hinata, my glasses,” Tsukishima says, pulling at the bandages.

Shouyou sighs and fishes them out of his pocket, handing them over. “Hey, Yamaguchi. How are we getting Kageyama out of the building?”

“Yes, I’d really like to know that too,” Kageyama says, sounding annoyed.

“I have a couple ideas,” Yamaguchi says. “But first I need to know everything about the drone prototype, Tsukishima.”

“Just a minute,” Tsukishima complains. “Let me get out of these damn bandages.”

…

“You want me to what?” Tobio hisses.

“It’s a fully functional drone,” Yamaguchi explains patiently, “if a little small. It should carry you down the remaining ten floors easily.”

“You don’t think you can do it?” Hinata asks.

“Of course I can do it,” Tobio scoffs. “That’s not the issue here.”

“Then what is the issue?” Yamaguchi asks.

“My rig is up there.”

“After we do finish this you can buy yourself a new one,” Tsukishima says, bored.

“Buy myself a new one?” Tobio glowers at nothing. He imagines that he’s glowering at Tsukishima’s stupid face. “I can’t buy a new one. I built this one. It’s one of a kind.”

“Then build yourself a new one,” Hinata says.

“You… ugh.” Tobio gives up, taking deep breaths in through his nose. “Fine, whatever. How are we doing this.”

“Well, it’s designed to be controlled remotely,” Yamaguchi says. “Tsukishima’s hacking into it using information from the report we stole. Once that’s done you just need to hold on tight.”

Tobio eyes the drone. It’s almost as big as he his. He has no idea how large the finished project will be. “And you’re sure it can take my weight?”

“Are you scared?” Hinata asks.

“Shut the fuck up,” Tobio snaps. “I’m not scared, I’m just making sure I have all the information.”

“It’ll be fine,” Yamaguchi soothes.

In Tobio’s hands the drone whirrs to life. 

“There it goes,” Tsukishima says. “Hold on tight, king. I’ve always wanted to pilot one of these things.”

“You’re flying me out?” Tobio suddenly feels queasy. “I’m changing my mind.”

“You are scared,” Hinata crows. “I knew it.”

“Just hold on to the damn drone,” Yamaguchi snaps. Tobio grabs the drone with both hands.

“You need to make it flat,” Tsukishima says. “It’ll crash like that, I’m getting all kinds of warnings.”

Tobio scowls and holds the drone above his head. After a long second the propellers all speed up, whipping air around the office and ruining whatever semblance of order was on the desk. Papers go everywhere but Tobio doesn’t have time to pay attention to that because his feet are barely touching the ground as the drone hovers high in the room. 

The drone is slippery and Tobio doesn’t like it. With a grunt he lifts his legs off the ground to wrap around the center of the drone’s body, careful of the propellers. With his legs holding on he’s able to get his arms more firmly around the white plastic. Just in time, too. The drone starts moving.

Slowly, carefully, the drone flies through the hole Tobio made earlier in the glass. It’s a tight fit but they make it and then Tobio is in open air.

“Close your eyes if you’re scared,” Hinata says in Tobio’s ear and Tobio can’t help but scoff. He’s never been scared of heights in his life.

The city is beautiful ten stories up. Tobio leans his head back to watch as the drone slowly drops. He can see Tsukishima in front of his laptop through the window of the building across the way, the place where Yamaguchi had watched their progress. Below him is the empty street and a small orange figure that is slowly getting bigger.

“He’s dropped out of sight, by the way,” Tsukishima says, unconcerned. “I’m flying blind now.”

“What?” Tobio snaps over the sound of the wind and the propellers.

“Don’t worry, king, if you die we’ll split your share evenly in remembrance of you.”

“No one’s dying,” Yamaguchi says.

“Yeah,” Hinata says. “If he falls, I’ll catch him.” He sounds so sure, like it’s a fact. Tobio tips his head back as far as it will go and watches Hinata’s face come into focus as he gets closer. He looks sure too.

“Tell me when he gets close to the ground,” Tsukishima says. “I don’t want to crash it.”

“You’re almost there,” Hinata says. “Another few seconds and you can stop dropping.”

The drone shudders under Tobio’s hands. “Tsukishima, you bastard, knock it off.”

“Knock what off?”

“Stop pretending you’re gonna crash.”

“I’m not.”

Tobio freezes. He can see the exact moment that Hinata processes the words. His eyes get round and huge and his mouth becomes a hard line. Tobio wonders what his own face is doing.

“Tsukishi-”

Tobio doesn’t hear the rest of what Yamaguchi was going to say. The drone stops working, hanging in the air for a split second before gravity drags it down. He’s maybe eight meters from the ground and he has just enough time to let go of the drone with his legs and try to get them under himself before he makes contact with Hinata.

He didn’t expect Hinata to actually catch him, but he does. It hurts, Tobio is going to have bruises in the shape of Hinata’s arms on his back and the back of his thighs. He bashes Hinata on the top of the head with the drone, which makes Hinata grunt a complaint, but other than that the three of them, Tobio, Hinata, and the drone, end up completely intact.

Hinata drops Tobio’s legs and they fall the remaining five or so centimeters to the ground. Apparently, to catch him Hinata had dropped into an extremely low crouch. Hinata rubs at the top of his head. “Ow, Kageyama.”

“Dumbass,” Tobio says because he doesn’t know what else to say. Hinata sticks his tongue out at Tobio and his face is too close. Tobio doesn’t do close. His stomach flips at all the details he can see in Hinata’s face and eyes. Gold, that’s what Tobio sees, entire worlds of gold. Tobio likes gold, he stole almost a ton of gold bars from a bank once.

“You guys okay?” Yamaguchi asks.

Tobio snaps out of whatever magic spell he was under and disengages, scrambling out of Hinata’s arms so fast he nearly trips and falls. His face is hot and his stomach feels tight and he hates Hinata so much. He didn’t sign up for whatever the hell that was.

“We’ve got your stupid drone,” Tobio says.

“Also, we’re fine,” Hinata says, shooting Tobio a confused look.

“Good,” Yamaguchi says. “I’m glad you guys are alright.

“Yay, everyone’s good,” Tsukishima says with a cheer so false it can only be sarcasm. “Now let’s get rid of this stuff so I can get far away from you assholes.”

“I don’t know,” Hinata says. “I had a lot of fun.”

“You would,” Tobio hisses.

Hinata scowls at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, guys,” Yamaguchi says. “Can you hold it together for just ten more minutes so we can be done with this?”

“Whatever,” Tobio says, turning his back on Hinata and walking away.

…

Tadashi wakes up the morning after the heist to the sound of his phone. Whoever it is he’s going to kill them. The team, if you could call them that, were out until something like four in the morning and Tadashi has not had enough sleep to be waking up at the ass crack of… eight thirty according to his clock.

He rolls over and lets his phone go to voicemail. Whoever it is can bother him again in six more hours.

His phone goes off again immediately. Tadashi flips back over and grabs his phone, accepting the call without even checking who it is. “What?”

“Yamaguchi, how could you do this to me?” Takeda says. He sounds like a nervous wreck.

“What?” Tadashi repeats, this time less angry and more confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I never got my plans, I never got my prototype, I never got anything. You let them screw me over, Yamaguchi. I specifically asked you not to let them screw me over.”

Tadashi drags his free hand down his face and tries to think. “That’s impossible. I oversaw the whole thing.”

“Apparently you didn’t,” Takeda says. “I didn’t get any of my stuff so I’m stopping the payments.”

Tadashi feels panic settle into the pit of his stomach. He needs that money, not to mention that he doesn’t like the idea of how the rest of them will react to not being paid. “You don’t have to do that. Let me come over, maybe they just got misplaced.”

“You can’t come here, are you crazy?” Takeda practically shrieks. 

“Takeda-san, calm down,” Tadashi says, trying to be soothing. “Let’s talk about this.”

“I can’t, I’ve already said too much here,” Takeda stops for a moment and breathes out, the sound of it shaky through the phone. The next time he speaks he sounds more put together. “There’s a warehouse that the company owns at the edge of town. It’s being decommissioned so no one will be there. Meet me in an hour, I’ll text you the address.”

“Fine, sure,” Tadashi says, trying not to think about getting up and putting on clothes when he’d rather just return to the warmth of his bed. “See you then.”

…

“Was it you?” Kageyama demands as Kei slides into the building.

“Why would I do it?” Hinata snaps back. “It was probably you, you’re the thief.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I did it, you fucking dumbass. I’d take my stuff and get far away from here,” Kageyama says, and then. “Oh. Huh.”

“Genius,” Kei deadpans as he rounds the corner. “Truly a master of deductive reasoning.”

“Fuck you,” Kageyama says.

“I’m surprised you’re not holding us all at gunpoint, king,” Kei says, unable to resist the dig. Kageyama flinches.

“I was, but this asshole took my gun and fucking disassembled it.” 

Hinata throws up a peace sign and smiles. “There wasn’t any ammo in it anyway. Kageyama’s a softie at heart.”

“Oh, going soft on us?” Kei asks.

“I can get my hands on some ammo, if you’d like,” Kageyama threatens.

“Why are you guys here?” Tadashi calls, walking in from the other side of the warehouse. He yawns and it’s stupidly cute.

“I didn’t get paid,” Kageyama says with the kind of emphatic rage people usually reserve for their darkest revenge fantasies.

“Me neither,” Hinata says, pouting like someone took away his cookie. 

Tadashi looks to Kei and Kei shrugs. “I fully intended to see none of you ever again, why would I show up if I had gotten paid.”

With a sigh Tadashi comes to a stop, completing their little square of criminals. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would you all be told to…”

Tadashi freezes and his eyes go wide, flicking between them as his brain connects the dots. He had looked sleepy before but now he’s wide awake.

“What?” Kei asks.

“Get out,” Tadashi says, voice hoarse. They all just blink at him stupidly until suddenly he snaps into action. “Get out now!”

Maybe they all trust Tadashi a little too much, Kei reflects, as they all scramble at once for the door. Not one of them questions Tadashi’s seriousness, nor his accuracy. They all just follow the command that Tadashi gives them. Kei slips halfway and Hinata bodily picks him up by the back of the shirt so he can get back on his feet. By the time they make it into the sunlight of the parking lot Kei is starting to wonder what they’re all running from. That’s when the warehouse explodes. 

They didn’t make it far enough away to clear the blast radius and they all go flying. Kei impacts the ground hard, scraping up his hands and his knees as he rolls over. His head is ringing and his glasses have fallen off in all the motion. He sure hopes they aren’t broken. For a moment that feels long but is probably less than a second Kei wonders if Tadashi made it out, he was bringing up the rear of their group, and then everything goes dark.

He comes to as they’re handcuffing him to a hospital bed. Someone gave him back his glasses, for which he’s thankful, and then he’s immediately not. The fingertips of his right hand are blackened with ink. They’ve already fingerprinted him.

The police leave the room. Kei groans and drops his head back onto the pillow.

“You’re slow,” Kageyama says. “They just finished.”

Kei looks to the side to see that things do in fact get worse. Kageyama sits sideways on his hospital bed, also handcuffed to railing. He’s cross-legged and leaning on one knee with the elbow of his free arm, chin in his hand and trademark glare on his face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kei says.

“We were set up,” Kageyama spits.

“No, really?” 

“Shut up.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“Local hospital,” comes Hinata’s voice, echoey and faded. Kei looks around for a source and spots a grate high in the wall through which the air ducts are somehow channelling Hinata. “This is a poor neighborhood so the hospital is poor. Thin walls, improper venting.”

“How the hell do you even know this shit?” Kageyama snaps.

“I’ve been in a lot of hospitals,” Hinata says, as if that’s an answer.

Kageyama sighs and straightens up. He fiddles with the pocket of his hoodie for a minute and then unearths a pair of thin metal lockpicks that he had apparently embedded in the seam. Kei stares and Kageyama lifts an eyebrow as if daring Kei to say something.

It barely takes Kageyama a few seconds to pick his way free of the handcuffs. 

“Where’s Yamaguchi?” Kei asks while he watches.

“He’s with me,” Hinata says. Kageyama picks the handcuffs off the bed entirely and then folds them up in his hands. “Still passed out though.”

“So he’s okay?” Kei asks.

“Yeah, mostly just covered in ash. That washes off eventually.”

Kageyama stands up on the bed, handcuffs hooked easily on his fingers, to push his face against the grate and peer through it. “Oh,” he says, disappointed. “It isn’t a duct, it’s just a hole in the wall.”

“Were you just going to abandon me here?” Kei demands. 

Kageyama pulls back to shoot him a dirty look. “Obviously.”

There’s the sudden sound of someone jumping in place, a jerky rustle of fabric and a quiet meep, and Hinata says, “Hey, Yamaguchi.”

“Hinata,” Tadashi says, obviously still groggy. “Where are we?”

“Local hospital,” Hinata says again. “They’re poor so security is shitty. I could probably take them all out if I could get out of these handcuffs.”

“Save it til after I’m gone,” Kageyama says.

“Other people might love to be uncuffed, king,” Kei says. “I don’t want them to ID me off my prints either.”

“Be quiet, everyone,” Tadashi says. “If you let me think I can make a plan to get us all out of here together.”

“Not all of us want to get out of here together,” Kei replies. 

“Tsukki,” Tadashi sighs and all of Kei’s protests die.

“Fine,” he says and Kageyama shoots him a confused look. “What do you need to know?”

“Fingerprints?”

“Already taken.”

“When?”

“Like five minutes ago.”

“How long until they know?”

“Probably twenty-five minutes,” Kei says. “Could be less if they send it to a lab with good software.”

“Okay,” Tadashi says. “Okay.”

“This is stupid,” Kageyama says but he doesn’t open the window and crawl to freedom so Kei assumes he’s staying.

“Kageyama, we need phones,” Tadashi says.

“They took all our stuff,” Hinata says.

“We don’t need our phones,” Tadashi says, “we just need phones. Two of them, one for me and one for Tsukki.”

“Tsukki,” Kageyama mimics. Kei tries to kill him with his eyes.

“Tsukishima,” Tadashi corrects.

Kageyama scowls back at Kei. “This sounds stupid and complicated. I can get out of here by myself.”

“It will be easier and safer if we do it together,” Tadashi says. “Can you trust me?”

Kageyama’s face pinches but he doesn’t say anything. It’s Hinata who says, “Of course we trust you. You’re, like, a good person.”

Tadashi just sighs. “Kageyama, phones please.”

“I hate you all,” Kageyama says, and then he turns away and sticks a finger down his throat to make himself throw up all over the cheap linoleum. 

“What the fuck, king?” Kei snaps, looking away and feeling his stomach roll at the sound and the smell. “Disgusting.”

…

Tobio hates puking. It’s a terrible feeling, like your guts are trying to leave your body. Handcuffing himself back into bed is pretty terrible too.

The doctors come in and poke and prod him. They shine lights into his eyes, take his temperature, check his blood pressure, and do all kinds of boring things that Tobio doesn’t like or care about. It’s stupidly easy to palm a phone from the doctor and stick it under his hip where no one will see it. He palms the second phone from the police officer who recuffs him to the bed after the doctor is satisfied that he isn’t dying.

The police, doctors, and janitor all leave once the puke is cleaned up. Tsukishima watches the whole thing with distaste.

“Disgusting,” Tsukishima repeats after they’re gone.

Tobio pulls the phones from under the covers. One of them is an iPhone, the other a galaxy. A quick swipe at their screens reveals that the iPhone doesn’t have a password, idiot, while the galaxy does. He turns the screens towards Tsukishima. “Think you can fix that?”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Give them here.”

Tobio tosses them across the aisle between the beds and Tsukishima catches them ungracefully, glaring when Tobio snorts, before turning his attention to the iPhone. Tobio picks his way back out of the handcuffs while he waits. It takes maybe two minutes, during which Hinata complains multiple times, for Tsukishima to get the galaxy unlocked. After that Tobio slides the slightly thinner iPhone through the slats of the vent and Yamaguchi stretches to take it from him.

“Okay,” Yamaguchi says. Tobio watches through the metal slats as he hands the phone over to Hinata. “They’re waiting for a call to tell them the results of the fingerprinting, right? So we’ll call first and give them the results we want.”

“Which are?” Hinata asks. Tobio privately wonders the same thing.

“There’s no way they’ll let civilians off the hook for a bombing,” Yamaguchi says. “So one of us will be an undercover cop, someone high level from a different prefecture who is authorized to bring the other three in and needs the supplies to do it. Tsukishima, can you make that happen?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tsukishima says. He turns on the front facing camera on the galaxy and snaps a photo of himself before continuing. “Give me a minute to write up some fake documents and then you can call.”

“Be fast,” Yamaguchi says. “We’re running out of time. Once I call I’m going to need those documents faxed to the hospital.”

“Is this really going to work?” Hinata asks.

“People in the police force generally don’t question orders given from someone with authority,” Yamaguchi says. “They’re trained not to.”

“Seems stupid,” Tobio says.

“It kinda is,” Yamaguchi says. He sounds like he’s laughing. “You’re gonna want to be handcuffed when the police come to get us, by the way.”

Grumbling, Tobio sits back down and handcuffs himself to the hospital bed railing yet again. This entire thing is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard and it’s even dumber when it actually works. The police give Tsukishima a police car, keys to Tobio, Hinata, and Yamaguchi’s handcuffs, and a fucking salute as they go. Tsukishima hits Tobio’s head against the car doorframe putting him in the back and says “oops, sorry.” in the most sarcastic voice Tobio’s ever heard. He swears when he gets home he’s going to find a gun and shoot Tsukishima in the face.

The place they stop at, however, isn’t anywhere near Tobio’s home, not that he’d willingly give Tsukishima his address. Instead it’s a nice loft with a good view. The best part is the high ceilings and the exposed wooden beams that would make a nice place to test repel lines.

Hinata gives a low whistle. “Who’s place is this?”

“Mine,” Tsukishima says and Tobio immediately hates it. “Don’t worry, I’m moving as soon as you leave. I don’t need you knowing where I live. But first, plane tickets to far off places so we can all lay low for a while and never speak to each other again.”

“Gladly,” Tobio mutters.

“You can run away if you want. I’m going to find Takeda and kick his ass.” The way Hinata says it, as if it would be easy, makes Tobio shiver.

Tsukishima scoffs and sits down in front of a very complicated multi-screen computer set-up. “You’ll never get near him. He knows all our faces.”

“That doesn’t matter if he doesn’t see us coming,” Tobio says, annoyed.

“Exactly,” Hinata says, pointing at Tobio and grinning. “We know what’s up.”

Tobio scowls. “Don’t lump me in with you.”

“Rude, Kageyama,” Hinata says, but he’s still smiling because he’s absolutely crazy.

“Knock it off, you two,” Yamaguchi says, rubbing at his forehead. Tobio looks him over with a frown. He looks terrible.

“Hey,” Tsukishima says, calling their attention back to him. “Guess who got robbed last night while we were stealing for him.”

“Are you serious?” Tobio asks, drifting towards Tsukishima and his multiple computer screens for a better look. He’s not alone, they all crowd around the back of Tsukishima’s chair.

Hinata laughs. “Karma. Serves him right for trying to kill us.”

Tobio watches as a news video plays and with the click of a button Tsukishima brings up the sound. On the screen a shy looking man with glasses and messy dark hair stutters through his interview. The caption names him as Takeda Ittetsu, head of Karasuno Aerospace Innovations’ drone program and the man, according to the emails, that they sent the drone blueprints and working prototype to.

“Karasuno Aerospace Innovations plans to pursue the thieves to the fullest extent of the law,” Takeda says, pushing his glasses up his nose shakily. “The project in question represented years of work for our department and millions of yen in research materials.”

“This isn’t right,” Yamaguchi says.

“What isn’t right about it?” Hinata questions.

“If you ask me the guy got what he deserved,” Tsukishima says.

“No,” Yamaguchi says. “I mean that’s not Takeda.”

Collectively they look at the computer screen and then back to Yamaguchi.

“What are you talking about?” Tobio asks.

“The Takeda I spoke with had longer hair that was lighter and obviously styled. He was taller too.” Yamaguchi frowns. “He also had a deeper, smoother voice. This isn’t the same guy.”

Tsukishima pulls up another window next to the video, which mutes itself, and starts typing and cross referencing. Within a minute he’s pulled up two web pages that are nearly identical.

“Okay,” Tsukishima say. “This is the public administration page for Karasuno Aerospace which lists the department heads along with pictures and a short bio containing their credentials. This is the official page, this is a dummy page that was up for 24 hours two days ago. The only difference is Takeda’s picture. One of them is Takeda, the other is-”

“Oikawa Tooru,” Tobio says, staring at the picture.

“Oikawa Tooru?” Hinata asks.

“He’s a thief.” Tobio feels nauseous, and not just because he made himself throw up earlier. “One of the best ones that ever lived.”

“I thought he was dead,” Tsukishima says, squinting at his computer screen. “Didn’t he die a few years ago.”

“Yeah, he did,” Tobio says. “He, uh, died in a car accident.”

“Clearly not,” Yamaguchi says. Tobio glances at him to see that there’s a hard look in his eye. “Clearly he’s still alive and using other criminals to do his dirty work, pretending to be an innocent person who needs help so that people don’t look too closely while he becomes one of the most dangerous men in Japan.”

“Yamaguchi?” Tsukishima questions.

Yamaguchi drags a hand down his face. “The drone we stole last night was meant to be used for defense and I’d bet that so was Karasuno Aerospace’s. They’re the two leaders in drone innovation with multiple government contracts. If Oikawa stole them both then that means he’s holding a monopoly on the next wave of drone manufacturing. Whoever he sells them to will have an edge and I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes them overseas and sells them to terrorists.”

There’s a moment of silence that greets his words as they all ponder the implications of this. Oikawa is ruthless, Tobio knows, and the idea of him with an army of drones is terrifying.

“We should kick his ass,” Hinata says suddenly in the silence.

“Are you crazy?” Tobio hisses. “He’s Oikawa Tooru, you can’t go at him directly.”

Hinata turns to face Tobio and there’s that look again, calm and collected and like Hinata could take on the world all by himself. With a look on his face like that, a voice so mild and calm, Tobio almost believes it.

“Are you saying that you don’t want to beat him?”

Tobio frowns. “What I want is my money. He never paid me, but now that he has killer drones I’m going to get jack shit.”

The look is gone and Hinata is just Hinata, stupid looking face and all. He throws his hands up in the air. “Why is that your priority? He tried to kill us.”

“And he failed,” Tobio snaps.

“Yes he did,” Yamaguchi says and he sounds thoughtful. 

Tsukishima, who has been watching Tobio and Hinata’s argument play out with something like boredom, whips his head around to stare at Yamaguchi. “No.”

“Think about it,” Yamaguchi says. “He thinks he got rid of us, he thinks that everyone thinks he’s dead.”

“I’m not running a game on Oikawa Tooru,” Tsukishima says.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says and it sounds like a warning. It’s such a strange nickname, Tobio thinks, and he wonders why Yamaguchi has a nickname for a criminal like Tsukishima. What kind of history do they have that makes Yamaguchi call him that like it’s his name and makes Tsukishima stiffen ever time he hears it?

“Tadashi,” Tsukishima fires back and Tobio watches Hinata’s jaw drop open at the sound of Yamaguchi’s first name. “It’s not worth it.”

Yamaguchi’s expression crumples into something like anger. “Since when is a little bit of payback not worth it to you?”

There’s silence after that. Tobio doesn’t dare breathe and neither, it seems, does Hinata. They watch as Tsukishima and Yamaguchi have a stare down. 

After a moment Tsukishima looks away. “He knows all of our faces anyway, remember.”

“We need a fresh face,” Hinata interrupts. “Someone under the radar that Oikawa won’t recognize.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “I doubt there’s anyone with the skills to fool Oikawa Tooru that’s also that under the radar.”

“That’s not true,” Hinata says. “I know someone.”

Tobio scoffs. “You know someone who can trick Oikawa-san?” He asks, disbelieving. “Who?”

Hinata just grins.

…

On stage the lead actress stands in one place, shaking like a leaf under the stage lights. She stutters through her lines, half the words barely audible with the way she mumbles them, and her eyes are wide and fixed straight ahead.

“A-and w-w-with all t-the, no wait.” 

“What the fuck,” Kageyama breathes flatly and privately Kei echoes the sentiment. “She’s fucking terrible, you dumbass.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hinata says back.

“Don’t worry about it?” Kageyama demands in a whisper scream. “How is someone who can’t even get the words out going to help, huh?”

“Hey, Yacchan is great. You’re just not seeing the best side of her.”

“I fucking hope not.”

Tadashi sighs and Kei risks a glance his way. He looks calm in the face of whatever the fuck this is. “I’m not guaranteeing anything, Hinata, but we’ll talk to her.”

“I b-b-bid thee a g-good, um,” the girl on stage stumbles through her words.

“Come on,” Hinata says. “We’ll meet her around back at the stage door and you guys’ll see how great she is.”

“I doubt it,” Kei mumbles and as they start to file out the door only to hiss in pain as Tadashi kicks him sharply. Kei shoots him an irritated look.

“Don’t you start too,” Tadashi says.

Hanging around the stage door apparently means hanging around in an alleyway behind the theater. Kei feels like some creepy stalker, looming in the darkness to pounce on an unsuspecting girl. The only good thing is the entertainment, which comes in the form of Kageyama and Hinata arguing.

“You’re wasting our time,” Kageyama growls.

“We need a new face,” Hinata insists. “And Yacchan is great, trust me.”

“Why the hell would I trust you?” Kageyama demands. “I barely know you.”

“I trust you,” Hinata fires back, effectively shutting Kageyama up. Kei can’t help but perk up as he watches. He’s quickly learning that these two are more entertaining than most soap operas. Kageyama stares at Hinata, gaping like a fish, and Hinata just keeps on talking. “We’re basically a team now and I trust you 100%.”

“No you don’t,” Kageyama says weakly.

“Yes I do,” Hinata insists. “I’ll prove it, just you wait.”

Before Kageyama can respond the stage door opens and they all turn to see the girl from before. She looks smaller off stage with blond hair in a messy side ponytail. She searches for something in her bag, not even looking up, and Kei despairs her self-preservation instincts.

“Here we go,” Kei sighs. Tadashi, who has been quiet this entire time, shoots him a warning look. 

Tadashi’s in a bad mood. It probably has to do with being blown up and then finding out that he may be responsible for setting back the defense of several major countries. Tadashi is moral like that. Kei isn’t sure what to do to make him feel better except tuck him into bed and let him sleep it off. Somehow he thinks that after everything that’s happened that Tadashi wouldn’t appreciate it coming from him.

“Yacchan,” Hinata calls, jumping a little in place. As Kei watches the girl named Yacchan looks up and her face breaks into a sunny smile at the sight of a bouncing orange moron.

“Shouchan,” she calls back and then she takes off running in his direction, impressive with the heels she’s wearing, to throw herself into Hinata’s arms. Hinata catches her and spins her around, both of them laughing. Kei glances up and shares a commiserating look of disgust with Kageyama, something he never thought he’d do and judging from the twist in Kageyama’s expression he didn’t expect to do that either.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Yacchan says when Hinata sets her on the ground again.

“You know I always show up when I can,” Hinata says. “I love watching you act.”

Yacchan laughs. “Don’t tease me.” She glances around and takes note of them. Something about her eyes is sharper than Kei expected and he gains a sudden respect for her. She knows how to read a room, even if she can’t act her way out of a wet paper bag. “Who are your friends?”

“Oh, this is my new crew,” Hinata says and Kageyama makes a noise of disagreement in the back of his throat. Hinata soldiers on. “That’s Tsukishima, he’s an asshole but he seems like a decent hacker I guess. That’s Yamaguchi, he used to chase down thieves and take our stuff back but now he’s one of us. That’s Kageyama, he’s the king of thieves.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kageyama snaps.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Yacchan says with a bow. “I’m Yachi Hitoka. Thank you for taking care of Shouyou.”

“They haven’t been taking care of me,” Hinata says with a pout. “I’ve been taking care of them.”

Kei can’t help but snort. “Yeah, right.”

“Yachi-san,” Tadashi says, cutting off an argument before it even starts. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how do you know Hinata exactly?”

Kei looks to Yachi, curious. She tilts her head to the side. “Oh, I helped him steal the Star Dagger last year.” Kei stares at her, sure he heard that wrong.

“You did what?” Kageyama asks, eyes wide. Hinata stands taller, snickering. Tadashi’s jaw hangs for a moment before he gets himself under control.

“That’s a bold claim,” Kei says. The Star Dagger is an ancient ceremonial dagger that is highly sought after. Any time it is shown to the public security is ridiculously high.

“It’s not a claim, it’s true,” Hinata says, puffing out his chest. “Yacchan is an amazing grifter.”

“But is she good enough to fool Oikawa Tooru,” Tadashi wonders aloud.

“Oikawa Tooru?” Yachi asks, her eyes going a little wide. “Is that what this is about? I thought he was dead.”

“Unfortunately not,” Kageyama grumbles.

“But let’s keep that under wraps for now,” Tadashi says. “We’ve had a run in with him recently that went badly and we, uh, are in need of a grifting specialist who can fool him.”

“And Shouyou suggested me,” Yachi fills in.

“Yes,” Tadashi says. “It’s probably going to be pretty dangerous though. You should know that before you decide to help.”

Yachi turns to Hinata. “What dangerous thing have you gotten yourself mixed up in now?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Hinata says. Kei thinks of the look Hinata gets on his face sometimes, like he fully believes himself to be capable of tearing the world apart with his bare hands. He can’t help but wonder how much of that is ego.

Yachi turns back to Tadashi. “You’re the one in charge, right Yamaguchi-kun?”

Tadashi goes a little pink around the edges and Kei wishes he could be bitter but he can’t. He sees exactly where Tadashi is coming from. “Yeah, I guess.”

Yachi smiles. Tadashi smiles back. Cute, Kei thinks, they’re both ridiculously cute.

“Okay,” Yachi says. “I’ll help.”

…

Tsukishima’s apartment is amazing. It’s all natural woods and fantastic view of the city. The spaces are open and airy and every appliance is high tech. Hitoka pokes around the kitchen with Shouyou and Kageyama while Tsukishima hooks up a computer to his absurdly large television. Tsukishima yells at them not to break anything. Well, he mostly yells at Shoyou and Kageyama. At the last second his eyes track to her and his face goes a little blank before he turns back to his tech.

“What’s with him?” Hitoka asks Shouyou, her voice low.

“He’s got some kind of stick up his ass,” Shouyou says, not matching her tone at all. He’s terrible at subtlety, bless him. “It’s even bigger than the one Kageyama has.”

“Oi,” Kageyama complains and Shouyou smiles at him. Hitoka almost laughs. She wonders if they know that they’re flirting.

“Get settled guys, we’re almost ready,” Yamaguchi calls. He hesitates slightly. “Guys and girl, I mean.”

Hitoka does laugh then. Yamaguchi is tired but he’s also kind. She can see it around his eyes and in the way he clearly worries his bottom lip without noticing. “It’s fine, Yamaguchi-kun, I know what you meant,” she says.

He smiles at her, a shy thing, and Tsukishima makes an aborted scoffing noise. Yamaguchi jumps, looking guilty, and Hitoka’s pretty sure there’s a history there. If Shouyou and Kageyama are two people who are just now meeting and starting to fall in love then Yamaguchi and Tsukishima are two old lovers who have had a falling out but still have feelings for one another. 

Maybe she’s just making it up but it all seems so very romantic. It’s fun to think about and it lends a certain weight to the lingering glances.

The five of them gather on the couch, the screen in front of them so large it fills the entire wall. Tsukishima is at one end, his fingers clicking on his keyboard as he pulls up file after file on the screen and organizes them into groups. Next to him, Yamaguchi squints at the files and makes thoughtful humming noises in the back of his throat occasionally. At the other end of the couch Kageyama and Shouyou fight over popcorn. As in literally fight. Tsukishima is going to kill them when he realizes that they’ve spilled some of it on the carpet and into the cracks between the cushions in their tussling.

In the middle Hitoka can’t help but feel content. They’re about to plan a crime, one that will set them on a path of danger, but somehow she wouldn’t be anywhere else. So much of what is happening here is interesting. This entire experience is going to be important, she can feel it.

“Oikawa Tooru,” Tsukishima begins without preamble, pulling up picture after picture of a man Hitoka has only heard about. Most are blurry and one looks suspiciously like a mug shot. “Grifter, thief, and experienced criminal mastermind responsible for, among other things, the largest shipment of illegal chinese artifacts to be smuggled into America and selling Tokyo Tower to twelve people in one day on a dare.” Tsukishima’s face twists like he’s smelled something bad. Hitoka watches him almost as much as she watches the screen. It’s not that he doesn’t approve, she thinks, it’s that he hates acknowledging other people’s successes.

“Word on the street,” Tsukishima continues, “is that he also trained the king of thieves himself.”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Kageyama snaps, sitting up a little straighter.

Tsukishima’s feathers seem to be smoothed by that reaction. He smirks. “No.”

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi sighs.

“Were you really trained by Oikawa-san, Kageyama-kun?” Hitoka asks, if only to break the tension. Yamaguchi glances at her, relief hidden in the edges of his expression, and Kageyama fixes her in his dark gaze.

“Yes.”

Hitoka leans forward a bit and gives Kageyama her full attention. “What’s he like?”

Kageyama seems taken aback by the question, face falling from a glare into a softer, more surprised expression. When he looks like that Hitoka can see why Shouyou likes him so much, even if Shouyou isn’t going to be admitting it anytime soon.

“He’s awful,” Kageyama says, eyebrows drawing down back into a glare. “He acts like he’s a kind person but he’s really always looking for a way to get power over you. You can’t let your guard down around him.”

Hitoka thinks it over. “Does he have a big ego?”

Behind her, Yamaguchi lets out a soft breath around an, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, looking from Hitoka to Yamaguchi and back. “Why, what does that have to do with anything?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Shouyou laughs. “Kageyama, we could use that.”

Kageyama’s face scrunches up but before he can say anything Tsukishima gets their attention.

“Regardless of his ego, while digging through some law enforcement agency databases through a few backdoors I always keep open I discovered some interesting stuff,” Tsukishima clicks around and pulls up a report. It’s in English, the stamp for Interpol in the upper corner. Kageyama and Shouyou both groan.

“English?” Shouyou complains while Hitoka skims it. “Why does it have to be English?”

“Shut up, dumbass, I’m trying to sound the words out,” Kageyama snaps back.

Hitoka’s reading comprehension in English is pretty good but it must not be as good as Yamaguchi’s because before she’s reached the bottom he’s letting out a low whistle. “We really need to get into those files.”

“What files?” Shouyou asks.

“They know he’s alive,” Hitoka says. “Some of the verbage here suggests that they have files on Oikawa-san’s activities.”

“I tried to get them,” Tsukishima says. He sounds flippant but when Hitoka glances his way she can see the irritation around his eyes. “Turns out Interpol keeps most of their important files on a closed system so at the very least I need to get one of my USB sticks into their servers. Worst case scenario I need to actually be there.”

Shouyou groans. “Interpol, huh? Do we have to go to Europe?”

“No,” Yamaguchi says, rubbing a hand along his jaw as he thinks. “Theoretically, we should be able to pull files for Japanese criminals at the local Interpol offices.”

“Theoretically?” Kageyama wonders.

“More than theoretically,” Yamaguchi says. “Almost definitely.” He nods to himself and turns to Hitoka. “How’s your English?” He asks in English. His accent isn’t bad but Hitoka’s is better.

“American or British?” Hitoka asks.

Yamaguchi blinks. “Either. No, British.”

“I think it’s passable,” Hitoka says, injecting Northern UK vowels into her English. “I could always use the practice, though.” On the other side of Yamaguchi Tsukishima’s eyebrows climb behind his glasses.

Behind her, Kageyama asks, “What the fuck is she saying?”

“Don’t look at me,” Shouyou complains. “I only speak Japanese.”

Yamaguchi smiles. “I think we can make this work.”

…

“Why do I have to do it?” Shouyou hisses and he pushes up his tie. Yachi tuts and pushes his hands away to straighten it for him.

“You have the most experience grifting with Yachi-san,” Yamaguchi says in Shouyou’s ear. They’re in the parking lot of Tokyo’s Interpol office. Halfway across the lot there’s a nondescript black van. In the back of it, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima use tech that Tsukishima built himself to keep an eye on the situation. “Also, if something goes wrong your the mostly likely person to be able to get the three of you out.”

“Speak for yourself,” comes Kageyama’s voice. “I could get myself out of a tight spot easily.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be staying in a tight spot?” Tsukishima asks.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Kageyama snaps. His voice has a strange, thin quality to it but that’s probably because he’s currently pretending to be a window-washer, wiping at the glass while the scaffolding moves him up the building in increments. Even though Tsukishima’s fancy earbuds are on the inside of the ear they still pick up some of the wind.

“I don’t even speak English,” Shouyou complains. “How am I supposed to make it seem like I’m translating properly?”

“I’ll walk you through the entire thing,” Yamaguchi soothes.

“Don’t worry, Shouchan,” Yachi says. “I wouldn’t let you make yourself look like an idiot.”

“Too late,” Tsukishima says. Yachi sighs.

“Tsukishima, do you wanna fight?” Shouyou demands.

“Knock it off you two,” Yamaguchi says. “Kageyama’s already halfway up the building. We’re on the clock.”

“Okay, okay,” Shouyou says. He makes sure that the badge Tsukishima printed is pinned to the outside of his suit properly and then he steps out of the car.

Grifting is all about confidence and Shouyou can always drag that up from somewhere. You stop being scared of ordinary people when you’ve seen the kinds of combat that Shouyou has seen. Maybe that’s just how Shouyou deals with it. He’s known guys that have only gotten more anxious but Shouyou’s always reacted well under pressure. The higher the stakes the calmer Shouyou is. Maybe that’s why he made such a good soldier.

Falling into the role of “generic suit number ten” is easy. Yachi is doing the hard part, the auditor from overseas. Shouyou is just the middleman and the other suits will probably see him as being on their side.

Shouyou holds the door open for Yachi and she strides through like a woman on a mission. Shouyou scrambles to catch up and she doesn’t slow down to give him the chance. It’s good, it really sells the bit when Shouyou nearly falls over.

Yachi says something to the receptionist in English, slowly and as if to a child. The receptionist blinks at her, surprised, and Yamaguchi translates into Shouyou’s ear. “She says, ‘excuse me’.”

“Excuse me,” Shouyou says quickly, sliding to a stop next to Yachi. Yachi frowns at him. “This is Sano Maria, from the London office. She’s here to audit our files and make sure everything is up to date.”

“I wasn’t made aware of an audit,” the receptionist says, frowning.

“That’s why it’s called an audit,” Shouyou says, patiently.

The receptionist gives him a narrow look. “I’m always made aware of the audits.”

Yachi says something, barks it like Kageyama does, and gives both Shouyou and the receptionist a bone-chilling glare. “She’s asking what the problem is,” Yamaguchi says in Shouyou’s ear. “Say, ‘Sorry, ma’am’.”

Shouyou repeats Yamaguchi, the noises sounding strange in his mouth, before turning back to the receptionist. “Listen, there was some talk about leaks so the higher ups said to have a special audit. They flew her in and everything. I really don’t have the time to argue this, if she isn’t back to the airport by this evening I’ll be in trouble so we really have to do this fast.”

Yachi keeps up the pressure by saying something else in a commanding tone. Shouyou gives the receptionist his most pleading look and she frowns at him. “I don’t know.”

“Listen, if you don’t let us into the servers to run the audit I’ll be in a lot of trouble and I’ll tell them it was you in a heartbeat. I don’t want to lose my career over this.”

The threat does it, she shuffles Yachi and Shouyou through the metal detector and they’re assigned a nervous looking agent to take them to wherever it is that they think Yachi needs to go. Halfway up the building Yachi is sat in front of a computer with a whole bunch of information in English that Shouyou doesn’t know what to do about. Yachi does, though, and she takes notes on the clipboard that Shouyou had thought she brought in just for show.

“I’m nearly to the roof,” Kageyama says in Shouyou’s ear. “Are you ready to let me in or not?”

Shouyou grimaces. He had hoped to be left alone but the agent who walked them up here is still hanging around.

“Hinata?” Kageyama questions after a moment of silence. 

“Hey,” Shouyou says, grabbing their chaperone’s attention. “Do you speak English?”

“Passably?” 

“Great,” Shouyou says. “I’m dying to use the toilet and maybe find some coffee. Could you stay with her and make sure she gets everything that she needs?”

Yachi’s eyes lift and she gives Shouyou a suspicious look.

“I can try?” The agent says, but it sounds like he’s asking.

“Cool,” Shouyou says. “Just don’t leave her alone, okay?” He flashes Yachi a thumbs up and she rolls her eyes before returning to the task at hand.

“Okay,” The agent says and Shouyou slides out the door and into an empty hallway.

“Where am I going?” Shouyou mutters as soon as he’s alone.

“Up, dumbass,” Kageyama replies. “I’ll be at the roof in a minute and I need you to let me in.”

“I know that, Bakageyama,” Shouyou replies. “I mean how do I get up.”

“There are some stairs on the south side of the building,” Tsukishima replies, bored. “Didn’t you pay attention when we went over the blueprints?”

“I did,” Shouyou says, moving through the halls in a vaguely southern direction. “I just didn’t memorize them.”

“Idiot,” Kageyama scoffs.

“Hey, not everyone is a freak or whatever.”

“That’s true,” Tsukishima says. “I don’t know why you seem to think you’re not a freak though.”

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi sighs and Tsukishima falls petulantly silent.

…

When Hinata finally lets Tobio in he grabs Hinata by the top of the head and squeezes. “Don’t ever go on a job again without memorizing the blueprints, dumbass.”

“Kageyama, that hurts,” Hinata whines. Tobio releases him and scowls.

“What would you have done without Tsukishima, huh?”

“Die, probably,” Tsukishima says. This thought makes Tobio scowl harder, even more irritated, and he’s not sure why.

“I would have been fine,” Hinata complains. “How come you never have any faith in me?”

“Because you’re useless.”

“Kageyama, you can yell at him later,” Yamaguchi cuts in. “We shouldn’t keep Yachi-san waiting.”

“I’m going,” Tobio says and he takes the stairs two at a time, Hinata on his heels.

They head down four floors because he did memorize the blueprint and he knows exactly where he’s going. There’s a ventilation shaft that feeds right into the server room that he can access easily from a storage closet just a few turns away. As he leaves the staircase Hinata keeps going down and Tobio has the weirdest urge to touch Hinata before he goes, like a shove or a pat. He suppresses it and ducks through the door without saying anything.

He makes it to the vent just fine and easily unscrews the grate from the wall so that he can slide inside. It’s narrow but Tobio’s been in narrower. He may be tall but he’s not bulky and can slide through tighter spaces than most people realize. He’s careful to be quiet as he pulls himself along, tracking his movement through the building in his mind’s eye.

When he reaches the server room it only takes him a minute to open the vent from the inside. He pokes his head out and checks around. The coast is clear so he drops through the hole, silent and smooth. He finds the control computer and fishes Tsukishima’s USB out of his pocket. When he plugs it in the screen comes up and a program starts running on its own. It’s fast and before Tobio starts to wonder how long it’s going to take the computer is unlocked, generic Interpol background loading quickly.

“What now?”

“Now,” Tsukishima says and then he says nothing else. The screen comes up with a command prompt, white letters on a black screen, and they scroll quickly. Tobio frowns, not sure what any of the dashes and backslashes mean.

“Oi, Tsukishima,” Tobio complains.

There’s no response and Tobio scowls, looking around. He jumps as soon as he sees it.

In the room with him is a silent girl with long black hair and silvery eyes and Tobio hadn’t even known she was there.

…

Everything was going smoothly until suddenly several things started going wrong at once.

Kei’s computer crashes. Tadashi has never seen a computer that Kei is in physical contact with crash before. The screen goes black and the humming of the tower dies. Everything just stops.

“Uh, Tsukki?” Tadashi asks, worried.

“Fuck,” Kei says, vehement, and he dives under the desk to push the power button and start everything back up.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Kei says and he looks pissed when he sits back up. 

“Hey, can anyone hear me?” Tadashi asks. There’s no response through the coms.

“They won’t be able to hear you,” Kei says, confirming Tadashi’s worse fears. “Once I get my system up and running I can connect us all again but for right now we’re blind.

“Fuck,” Tadashi says, because Kei’s earlier swear seems appropriate.

…

“Hey,” Shouyou says into his coms as he stands in the staircase, frowning. Tsukishima had just suddenly cut off and now he can’t hear anyone. There’s always the chance that they can’t talk because they’re in front of people. “If you can hear me cough once.”

Someone coughs. It’s not through his coms.

Shouyou spins around to see a woman on the landing above him, barely a few steps away. She’s taller than Shouyou is, all long limbs. Her hair is short and curls around her ears, her eyes are big and they practically sparkle. She smiles and Shouyou finds himself smiling back.

“Hey,” she says, and then she swings at his face.

If Shouyou had been anyone else she might have hit him but he’s had so many surprise attacks that he responds to them with muscle memory now. He ducks and her elbow brushes his hair. She’s experienced, he can already tell by the way she moves, so he wastes no time in swinging for her ribs.

She takes the blow like a champ, her breath coming out of her in an ooph, and she turns her momentum into a spinning hook kick. Sometimes Shouyou is glad that he’s short because he’s able to duck under the blow again and he grabs for her leg. He catches it, holding her off balance, and she lifts her other leg to hit him in the side hard enough to bruise.

Staircases are bad places for fights. Shouyou stumbles and nearly goes down. He has to let her go to keep his balance and she uses that to her advantage. She’s trained in kickboxing, obviously, and he dances down the stairs towards the next landing while avoiding some truly impressive kicks.

Once he’s on even ground he’s able to take the fight back to her. He aims for the vulnerable points; throat, knees, ribs. Anywhere where it will hurt and make her want to stop. He ends up in a grab, one of his arms twisted behind him when she catches it and his face pushed into the wall.

“Wow, you’re not bad,” she says, cheerfully. “I’m Michimiya Yui, what’s your name?”

“Hinata Shouyou,” he says and he bashes her nose as hard as he can with the back of his head.

She lets him go and it’s his turn to do a backwards kick. He catches her in the shoulder but it’s only a glancing blow.

“Jeez, Hinata-kun,” she says. “You hit hard for such a small guy.”

Shouyou can’t stop himself from pouting. “And you hit hard for a girl.”

Michimiya nods. “Okay, I deserved that one,” she says, and then she lashes out with her elbow again. It’s a faint and he catches the knee she tries to plant in his gut with a hand and aims a shot at her solar plexus. She takes the hit and wheezes as she’s pushed back but she doesn’t let it slow her down. Shouyou is put on the defensive again when she lets loose with her fists.

On and on they go.

…

“You know,” the Interpol agent says in English, “your boy isn’t a bad liar but you can still see through him if you know what to look for.”

“He’s not my boy,” Hitoka responds in character, narrowing her eyes. “What was he lying about?”

“You,” the Interpol agent says. He doesn’t seem very timid anymore. His hair is silvery and his eyes are laughing. “You’re very good, by the way. I was almost sure that you were the real deal but Asahi picked up your communication signal.”

Hitoka tenses. “I’m sorry?”

The Interpol agent, who seems less and less like a real Interpol agent by the second, laughs. “You don’t have to play dumb. We know that you’re a crew of criminals trying to steal something from Interpol. What we don’t know is why.”

…

“You messed up our data mining,” the woman says.

Tobio backs up a step. “We didn’t know anyone else was trying to get data.”

The woman shrugs. She doesn’t seem to be a person of many words.

“What now?” Tobio asks. 

She shrugs again.

“Great,” he sighs.

…

When Kei’s computer boots up the first thing he sees is black hiragana on a white background. “Sorry,” his computer says. He flips it off and then tries a few shortcuts to remove it. After a moment he’s able to banish the offending message.

It takes him a minute of work before he’s able to bring the coms back online. The cacophony of sounds immediately gives him a headache.

“Yachi-san, Hinata, Kageyama,” Tadashi says immediately. They get a group of noises back, annoyed from Kageyama, relieved from Yachi, and Hinata just grunts a “Busy.”

“Tsukki, can you figure out what’s happening?” Tadashi asks but Kei is already typing. 

Before he gets anywhere the coms go silent again and then someone with a deep voice says, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Sawamura Daichi. I hate to clash like this but we need some information from this office so you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“We can’t do that,” Tadashi says. His hands are balled into fists and he meets Kei’s eyes. They share a nod and Kei turns his attention back to his computer.

Try to intimidate them into leaving? Don’t make him laugh.

…

Shouyou is almost knocked over by how loud everything is for a moment and it almost loses him the fight. He stumbles and Michimiya, who is a talented fighter, takes advantage of the opening and gets a good hit on the pressure point in his shoulder. His arm goes a little strange, responding slowly and going all tingly. Shouyou bites back a grunt of, “Busy,” when Yamaguchi asks after him and then keeps going.

A few seconds later it’s blissfully silent once again. Shouyou kicks out viciously and catches Michimiya hard enough in the side that she goes down for a moment, dangerously close to the steps. He doesn’t get to take advantage because she sweeps at his feet and he’s left stumbling to avoid it, chance lost. After that, though, her responses are also slowed. Shouyou may have bruised a rib.

“I didn’t expect you to be quite this good,” Michimiya says. “You don’t look like much but you can really fight.”

“Thanks,” Shouyou says and he kicks her hard enough in the hip that she lands on her ass.

Shouyou prepares to knock her out, his muscle bunching, when the sound comes back on his coms.

“Everyone stand down,” Yamaguchi says. “We’ve got a common enemy so we’re all going to work together.”

Shouyou stumbles in his effort to stop the momentum of his swing, nearly braining himself on the wall when he catches himself. His ears are ringing a bit so he slowly slides himself down so that he’s sitting, panting. Michimiya just sits on the stairs and pants too. Obviously she’s been given the same orders or she’s be standing up to take the easy shot Shouyou is offering her.

“Oh, good,” Yachi says in Shouyou’s ear. “Sugawara-san is a nice guy.”

“Oh, god,” Tsukishima says. He sounds disgusted. Shouyou might be a little delirious from the adrenaline but he can’t stop himself from laughing.

…

Tobio and the girl make it out of the building together. She’s quiet and Tobio doesn’t feel compelled to break the silence, especially because the coms are chatty enough for the both of them. Extracting Hinata and Yachi is apparently going to be complicated. It’s because of this that Tobio and the girl get out first.

They meet the others in the parking lot. Despite the fact that Tobio and the girl thief didn’t have to do anything nearly as complicated as the rest of them to get out of the building they don’t beat the other’s by much. Tobio’s barely been in the parking lot for a minute, feeling out of place as Yamaguchi talks with the other mastermind, when Hinata calls his name. 

Tobio turns at the sound of it to see Hinata limping his direction and smiling. He looks rough and it makes something in Tobio’s gut twist. He’s reminded of the gold he saw in Hinata’s eyes that first night, the look on his face like he can do anything, the way he stopped calling Tobio king just as fast as he started. It all means something but right now Tobio can only cross to Hinata in a few sure steps.

“What the fuck?” Tobio demands, grabbing Hinata’s face to hold him still. Hinata hisses and Tobio lets up on the pressure guiltily. “You’re bleeding, dumbass. What happened?”

“Got into a fight with the other hitter, Michimiya,” Hinata says, bringing a hand up to wipe at the blood leaking from his hairline. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Tobio glances at her. She’s tall and wiry looking, curly brown hair and a bounce in her step even though she’s sporting two shiners and a bloody nose.

“So do you, Hinata-kun,” Michimiya says. “We should fight again sometime.”

Tobio scowls at her. 

“Not for a while,” the other mastermind says. His voice is deep and commanding. “Come here, let me get you patched up, Yui.”

She goes willingly, bouncing towards his beckoning hand, and Tobio turns his attention back to Hinata. “Where’s your first aid kit now, dumbass?”

“It’s in the van,” Hinata says, brushing off Tobio’s hands. “I can do it.”

Tobio isn’t sure what to say so he watches as Hinata shuffles past where Tsukishima is glaring down a ponytailed man much bigger than him with his frostiest gaze and that man is actually cowering. Tobio can’t help but stare because the man in question has some pretty intense muscles to be cowering from a beanpole like Tsukishima no matter how well Tsukishima is able to glare.

“Don’t worry about him,” a voice says and Tobio turns back to see a man with hair so light it looks almost silver in the sun. His face is dotted with moles like the girl Tobio sat around with in the server room for five minutes without talking. “Our hacker has a soft heart. He’s afraid of everything.”

“Everything?” Tobio asks, frowning.

“Yeah,” the man says. “It’s why he became a hacker, actually, so that he doesn’t have to leave his house. Daichi and I won’t let him become a hermit, though, so I guess it didn’t work.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The man shrugs. “You seemed curious.”

Tobio scowls. He was curious and he doesn’t like that this guy was able to tell. It reminds him of Oikawa and that’s never a good feeling.

“I’m Sugawara Koushi but you can call me Suga,” the man says. “Everyone does.”

“Kageyama,” Tobio introduces.

“I know,” Suga says and then he winks and walks away. Tobio does not like him at all.

…

“Sure,” Kei grumbles under his breath as he settles into the drivers seat of his van a few minutes later. “I’ve already invited some people I hate into my home, what’s a few more.”

“Tsukki, stop it,” Tadashi says. He looks tired, bags under his eyes still. He should have gotten a good night’s rest the night before but something tells Kei that he stayed up all night planning this job. Kei hates that it went south. They just cannot catch a break. “You don’t hate Hinata and Kageyama.”

“I hate the king a little,” Kei says, just to stick to his guns. The truth is that he’s not entirely sure that he has the energy to hate Kageyama right now, not with that other hacker having beaten him. It was the element of surprise, Kei knows, but that doesn’t make him feel any better.

Tadashi hums as if agreeing but Kei knows that he can see right through him. Tadashi has always been that person for Kei, the one who knows. Kei frowns, feeling exposed, but Tadashi keeps his knowledge to himself.

“We can use all the help we can get to take down Oikawa Tooru,” Tadashi says instead. “Once this is over you can move and then never see any of us again.”

Kei tightens his grip on the wheel with one hand and starts the van with the other. He’s not sure that he wants to leave Tadashi again, not really, but he doesn’t know how to say that so he says absolutely nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to my fam; Xeylah, Bean, Quinn, Pineapplechan, Momo, and Dorylin. Come find me on [tumblr](https://talkativelock.tumblr.com) to scream with me about anime~


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